"I Need Some Help Here! Hope for When Your Kids Don't Go According to Plan" by Kathi Lipp
"I Need Some Help Here! Hope for When Your Kids Don't Go According to Plan" is my second or third Kathi Lipp book. Definitely my favorite. In "I Need Some Help Here!" Kathi lays it out for us - our kids do not go according to plan. They will be different, overwhelmed, troubled, sick or injured, make poor choices, run away from God, lack in character, struggle, and be left out. It will happen. Just as the Bible promises persecution to followers of God's way, I think it's safe to say we parents can hold tight to the fact that children will do/be one or more of these things. Even in my almost seven years of experience, my children have been or done most of these things. And we're not even to the teen years!
Yet Lipp does not leave us in this place of disappointment and hurt as parents. Chapter three says it all "You are Not the Only One." We aren't alone in this place called motherhood. We are not defined by what our children do or become. We can do the best we can and things just unravel sometimes. Throughout "I Need Some Help Here!" Lipp brings us stories from the trenches from other moms as well as her own life. I believe this shows that there is nothing we've gone through that someone else in the world hasn't gone through prior to us. We women can isolate ourselves in an extremely isolating time period of child bearing and raising. We think "oh so-and-so never yells at her kids" and "look how nice so-and-so kid's share" and "so-and-so is so spiritual and I'm just so overwhelmed." We tend to take the best moments of other women and compare them to our worst moments. Instead, we need to be vulnerable, willing to open up about our mistakes and our children's mistakes and misgivings in order to see this glorious chaos that God has brought us together for. There in the midst of this pain and heartache and openness, we will see one another for who we are: moms trying our best and failing but who keep moving forward.
In the times where our children fail or are hurt, we also need to really try hard not to fix everything for them. In the fixing of these times, we are taking away their chances to persevere and endure. The Bible says it's in those times that our faith is grown. So to take that away from them, we risk doing damage. Lipp never says not to help them but we must be discerning about how to help and when to help. Sometimes the best way to help is by prayer and Lipp offers prayers using Scripture verses to pray over our children and over ourselves in each circumstance.
I believe this is a practical book for mothers (and others) that helps us understand that we are together in this raising children business and we need to lean on one another and the Lord to make it through.
Disclaimer: I received this book in order to write an honest review. All opinions are my own.
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| image via Kathi Lipp's website |
Yet Lipp does not leave us in this place of disappointment and hurt as parents. Chapter three says it all "You are Not the Only One." We aren't alone in this place called motherhood. We are not defined by what our children do or become. We can do the best we can and things just unravel sometimes. Throughout "I Need Some Help Here!" Lipp brings us stories from the trenches from other moms as well as her own life. I believe this shows that there is nothing we've gone through that someone else in the world hasn't gone through prior to us. We women can isolate ourselves in an extremely isolating time period of child bearing and raising. We think "oh so-and-so never yells at her kids" and "look how nice so-and-so kid's share" and "so-and-so is so spiritual and I'm just so overwhelmed." We tend to take the best moments of other women and compare them to our worst moments. Instead, we need to be vulnerable, willing to open up about our mistakes and our children's mistakes and misgivings in order to see this glorious chaos that God has brought us together for. There in the midst of this pain and heartache and openness, we will see one another for who we are: moms trying our best and failing but who keep moving forward.
In the times where our children fail or are hurt, we also need to really try hard not to fix everything for them. In the fixing of these times, we are taking away their chances to persevere and endure. The Bible says it's in those times that our faith is grown. So to take that away from them, we risk doing damage. Lipp never says not to help them but we must be discerning about how to help and when to help. Sometimes the best way to help is by prayer and Lipp offers prayers using Scripture verses to pray over our children and over ourselves in each circumstance.
I believe this is a practical book for mothers (and others) that helps us understand that we are together in this raising children business and we need to lean on one another and the Lord to make it through.
Disclaimer: I received this book in order to write an honest review. All opinions are my own.
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